Sunday, August 08, 2010
Hiba Moeen
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This semester started off with a very disturbed week when there was much of terrorism facilitated by the group whose own man was shot or probably his death was yet another excuse to spread chaos in the city. It’s easy to have one’s bulk in London and notorious followers in Karachi.

Then there was rain, rather . . . there is rain, beautiful rain but what a mess we witnessed in our Northern areas. What if there were more dams? Would they have avoided the turmoil our people are facing?

Today was the day when I had my complete three hour class, yes a Sunday! I love classes on Sundays provided my Saturdays are off but provided they would have been off.

This morning I felt too lazy to notice billboards, however, there were hardly any of them embellishing the roads, The place adjacent to FTC where there was Tarang’s, then Fruitilly’s and then Chocolate chip Cookies billboard one was without any today. Probably it’s time to be cautious regarding rain with respect to what happened in August 2006. Ahhh! Good old memories of BBA. This was the time when it rained cats and dogs in Karachi and billboards adorned with women’s pictures were accused of such disaster and for facilitating the wrath of nature. Some days after that, Karachi faced widowed roads as most of the billboards were removed.

Anyway . . . why have some billboards been removed? They didn’t have any pictures of women to begin with . . . What really is annoying is the picture of that guy with hair transplant, he is hanging on every other pole at Nursery flyover . . . However, National’s mom and kid billboard is pretty nice or probably it’s the attractive mom . . . That’s could be the wrong place to put it up, it could become the cause of accidents . . . Now who would want to have that on a flyover and that too at the turning point . . .

There were small pools on the way to school, what really grabbed my attention was the missing horse in front of Regent Plaza, yes the horse that would continuously change it’s colour from black to white and then again from white to black and the cycle would continue. I remember there was Sony Ericsson’s logo there . . . was it a branded horse? Not to mention this brand that I would blow up some day, it doesn’t deserve a life in the hands of capable citizens here. =P

What followed was the beginning of a disgusting nightmare yet again or rather the daily nightmare. It was Cantt Station with sewerage spills and piles of filth with crows having breakfast on and there was black water on both sides of the road. I can imagine what the organization, ‘Black Water’ means now . . . it means filth!

Inspite of this the bus sailed through the place with smooth drive which is never possible in that place.

I was admiring my class timings, the sooner the better as an afternoon class on Sunday would have meant adjusting in with the target market of Sea View on the way back. I have had good dinner so wouldn’t want to describe them just now.

The day was hot and humid to begin with and we had our ‘New Media’ class. Our teacher was asking everybody the purpose of us being in that class and why exactly we were there, what was it that we wanted to get out of this course.

With a reluctant and lazy to function mind today I didn’t know what to say so the remaining half of my mind decided to cover me up and manufacture a few words it could think of in the short while. “I think I am here to witness the obsolescence of old and traditional marketing concepts.” I said . . . Lame I know but this is what I could relate to and hence the course name. We probably would be finding out about how old concepts might not be much relevant in today’s world, well Principles of Marketing by Philip Kotler was written in the 1960’s. Why are we still following that? I mean the same old 4 and 7 P’s? Can’t there be anything new? I like the book but still . . .

These were perfect class timings, on my way back it had started drizzling and when the bus reached Cantt Station again . . . Oh my God! That was an awful drive! The road over there had recently been made from scratch but I guess the rainfall of Karachi is especially customized to suit the place with it being high on acidic content; acid rain only is manufactured for our roads to destroy then completely. Why can’t we have roads made properly that rain won’t wear them out or do they depreciate on a straight line basis with no residual value?

Anyway, there were deep holes after each plateau, and the bus had to crawl because with proper facilitation of kinetic energy or with proper speed gained it would have fallen on either side, left or right and yes in that over flowing gutter or silt. “Bham!” it fell with two front tyres falling into that hole and “Bham!” it fell again with the other two tyres falling into the same hole, after all the bus was moving at least if not being driven with proper Pathan spirit. It fell twice with the bham happening four times. Wasn’t this jargon used for gunshot? Never mind I can use it here as well.

Since yesterday the rain timings have been roughly 2 o’ clock and today again at around this time rain had started pouring in. I got off the bus to have a nice walk in the rain soaking myself till I reached home . . . May we have more rain everywhere but with no negative consequences. Ameen!

Yes, and there is this book by Martin Lindstorm, 'Brandwashed'. It will be available in September, I read the excerpt, it's very interesting:http://adsoftheworld.com/blog/martin_lindstroms_new_book_brandwashed

LOL! No one will buy my books.It's my MBA last semester ... I'll get hold of Buyology then, actually very few teachers introduce new books and enlighten students with the latest material written ... But if anyone turns out to be gifted with such treasure it's a plus point for students ... Adage is another interesting website.